Israel party
Likud
الليكود ליכודRight-wing nationalist party, dominant force in Israeli politics since the late 1970s.
- Founded
- 1973
- Current leader
- Benjamin Netanyahu
- Founders
- Menachem Begin
Position — compass as of 2026-06-08
First-pass hand-coded estimate; pending second-pass external review. See methodology for the rubric.
Across the dataset
Open full comparison →Nearest
Closest by average Euclidean distance across all axes.
Most divergent
Farthest by the same metric. Useful for "anti-axis" framing.
Position — all axes
Briefs about Likud
Comparative political-science briefs pairing this party with others. 4 briefs on file.
- Likud vs. Hadash IL Israel's outer poles. The Jewish-nationalist mainstream right against the Arab-Jewish anti-Zionist socialist left.
- Likud vs. Hamas PS The headline cleavage. Israel's Jewish-nationalist mainstream right against the Palestinian Islamist resistance movement. Two parties that don't recognise the other's right to exist on the same land.
- Likud vs. Israeli Labor Party IL Israel's historical right–left axis. The maximalist-territorial Likud against the labor-Zionist tradition that built the state but now sits as a small opposition fragment.
- Likud vs. Religious Zionism Party IL The Israeli right-wing coalition pact. Likud's mainstream Jewish nationalism allied with the Religious Zionism Party's settler-clerical maximalism. Same coalition, different theological registers.
Members & affiliated figures
Politicians currently identified with this party — leaders, ministers, MPs, and other active figures. All affiliated politicians →
- Benjamin Netanyahu بنيامين نتنياهو Head of government in government
- Amir Ohana أمير أوهانا Speaker in government
- Israel Katz يسرائيل كاتس Minister in government
- Miri Regev ميري ريغف Minister in government
- Nir Barkat نير بركات Minister in government
- Yariv Levin ياريف ليفين Minister in government
- Afef Abed عفيف عابد MP in government
- Amit Halevi عميت هاليفي MP in government
- Ariel Kallner أرئيل كالنر MP in government
- Avi Dicter آفي ديختر MP in government
- Avichay Avraham Buaron أفيحاي أبراهام بوآرون MP in government
- Boaz Bismuth بوعز بسموث MP in government
- Dan Illouz دان إيلوز MP in government
- David Bitan دافيد بيتان MP in government
- Eli Dallal إيلي دلال MP in government
- Eliyahu Revivo إلياهو ريفيفو MP in government
- Etty Hava Atia إيتي حافا عطية MP in government
- Galit Distel Atbaryan غاليت ديستل أتباريان MP in government
- Gila Gamliel غيلا غمليئيل MP in government
- Hanoch Dov Milwidsky حانوخ دوف ميلفيدسكي MP in government
- Kathrin Shitrit كاترين شيتريت MP in government
- May Golan ماي غولان MP in government
- Moshe Passal موشيه باسال MP in government
- Moshe Saada موشيه سعدة MP in government
- Nissim Vaturi نيسيم فاتوري MP in government
- Ofir Katz أوفير كاتس MP in government
- Osher Shkalim أوشير شكاليم MP in government
- Sasson Sassi Guetta ساسون ساسي غيتا MP in government
- Shalom Danino شالوم دانينو MP in government
- Shlomo Karhi شلومو كارحي MP in government
- Tally Gotliv تالي غوتليف MP in government
- Tsega Melaku تسيغا ميلاكو MP in government
- Yuli Yoel Edelstein يولي يوئيل إيدلشتاين MP in government
Associated legislation
Bills this party introduced, championed, or whose passage / blocking it's publicly associated with. Status indicates the bill's parliamentary outcome. All Israel bills →
- Judicial Reform Package Sweeping legislative package introduced by Justice Minister Yariv Levin to curtail Supreme Court powers — eliminating "reasonableness" review of executive decis…
- Override Bill (proposed; struck down by post-Oct-7 dynamics) Proposed component of the 2023 judicial reform package that would have allowed a Knesset majority of 61 to override Supreme Court decisions, even on Basic-Law-l…
- Abraham Accords Series of normalization agreements between Israel and Arab states signed at the White House on 2020-09-15 (UAE, Bahrain), later joined by Morocco (December 2020…
- Basic Law: Israel — the Nation State of the Jewish People Declares Israel "the nation state of the Jewish People" and national self-determination "exclusive to the Jewish People"; names a complete and united Jerusalem …
- Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People Constitutional Basic Law passed by the Knesset establishing Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. Demoted Arabic from official status to a language w…
- Oslo I Accord Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements signed on the White House lawn on 1993-09-13 by Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat. Mutual Israel…
- Law of Return Israeli Basic Law granting every Jew the right to immigrate to Israel and acquire Israeli citizenship. Amended in 1970 to include grandchildren of Jews. Defines…
Recent events
Political events involving this party — formations, mergers, leadership changes, designation shifts. All events at /pulse →
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ICC arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on 2024-11-21 for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Israel rejected the warrants; states-parties to the Rome Statute are formally obligated to arrest the named individuals on their territory.
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Netanyahu fires Gallant and makes Likud loyalist Katz defense minister
On 5 November 2024 Prime Minister Netanyahu dismissed Defense Minister Yoav Gallant — who cited clashes over Haredi conscription, hostage deals and a state inquiry into October 7 — and replaced him with Israel Katz, a veteran Likud serial-minister (and, since January 2024, foreign minister) with no senior command background. Gideon Sa'ar took the foreign ministry. The wartime removal of a general for a political loyalist underscored Netanyahu's consolidation of control over the security establishment.
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Levin stonewalls the Judicial Selection Committee in defiance of the High Court
After the overhaul stalled, Levin for many months refused to convene the Judicial Selection Committee to fill Supreme Court vacancies — including the court presidency — seeking to leverage the appointments in his favour. The High Court of Justice ordered him to convene it, and his continued resistance became a running rule-of-law confrontation between an elected minister and the judiciary he sought to reshape.
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ICJ provisional measures in South Africa v. Israel genocide case
The International Court of Justice issued provisional measures in the South Africa v. Israel case on 2024-01-26, finding it plausible that Israeli operations in Gaza could be in breach of the Genocide Convention. The Court ordered Israel to take measures to prevent genocidal acts; full hearings on the merits are years away.
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Israeli judicial overhaul first reading passes
The Knesset passed the first major bill of the Netanyahu government's judicial overhaul on 2023-07-24 — the "reasonableness" amendment limiting Supreme Court review of executive decisions. Triggered the largest protest movement in Israeli history and was struck down by the Court in January 2024.
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Tech-mogul ex-Jerusalem mayor Barkat becomes economy minister
Nir Barkat — a high-tech multimillionaire who served two terms as mayor of Jerusalem (2008–2018), reshaping the city's economy while overseeing contentious planning in East Jerusalem — became minister of economy and industry for Likud on 1 January 2023. His tenure has drawn conflict-of-interest scrutiny over his retained business empire, and he has been floated as a future challenger to Netanyahu for the Likud leadership.
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Regev advances the "Loyalty in Culture" bill to police the arts
As culture minister, Miri Regev championed the "Loyalty in Culture" bill, which would let her ministry strip state funding from arts institutions deemed disloyal — for marking Independence Day as mourning, denying Israel as a "Jewish and democratic" state, or "incitement" — and shift control of arts budgets to the minister. It cleared a first Knesset reading in November 2018 amid an outcry that it would enshrine state censorship (a Holocaust survivor likened her to Hitler), then stalled and lapsed when the government fell. A signature press/cultural-freedom confrontation.
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US embassy moved to Jerusalem
The United States formally opened its embassy in Jerusalem on 2018-05-14, ending decades of US policy that kept the embassy in Tel Aviv pending a negotiated resolution of Jerusalem's status. Triggered Palestinian protests at the Gaza border with significant casualties.
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Israel-Hamas ceasefire negotiations ongoing
Ceasefire and hostage-deal talks between Israel and Hamas mediated by Qatar, Egypt, and the US have continued in fits and starts since the war began. Multiple deals have been close to agreement but collapsed over end-state guarantees. Negotiations are an ongoing pressure point on the Israeli coalition.
Declared vs. behavioral
For the axes below, this party's declared position (what the party says in its platform / official rhetoric) diverges from its behavioral position (its record of votes, coalition choices, or public actions). The spread itself is the methodological point — capturing the gap that a single composite score collapses.
- Liberal democracy spread: 7.0D: +5.0 B: -2.0 C: -4.0
Lens spreads are currently hand-coded on a curated set of cases where the gap is well-documented. Document-grounded scoring against the party's own platform documents (declared) and its voting / coalition record (behavioral) will scale this across the dataset. See methodology for the full lens-system roadmap.
Source documents
Texts the scoring pipeline reads — manifestos, speeches, platforms. Each document's verbatim content backs the position score above; the model cites specific phrases from these texts when scoring. All documents →
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Article English 2023-01-04 Likud behavioral democracy record — the 2023 judicial overhaul: the Likud-led government's plan (architected by Likud Justice Minister Yariv Levin) to curb Supreme Court judicial review; PM Netanyahu (Likud) said it would "strengthen democracy," while the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights warned it would "drastically undermine" the judiciary's check on executive and legislative power. Reported by JURIST (Feb 2023).
Specifically, Türk said that the proposals would limit the Israeli Supreme Court’s ability to perform judicial review of legislation and would require either a super majority or unanimity of judges for the court to…
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Bill Hebrew 2018-07-19 Basic Law: Israel — the Nation State of the Jewish People (Knesset, 19 July 2018)
BASIC-LAW: ISRAEL - THE NATION STATE OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE Basic principles 1. (a) The Land of Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish People, in which the State of Israel was established. (b) The State of…
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Bill Hebrew 2011-07-11 Israel's Anti-Boycott Law — “Law for Prevention of Damage to the State of Israel through Boycott, 5771-2011”
Enacted by the Knesset on 11 July 2011, the law (§1) defines a boycott against the State of Israel as 'deliberately refraining from economic, cultural or academic ties with another person or body solely because of its…
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Party platform Hebrew 1999-01-01 Likud Party electoral platform, 1999 (English translation of Hebrew original)
The Jordan river will be the permanent eastern border of the State of Israel. The Kingdom of Jordan is a desirable partner in the permanent status arrangement between Israel and the Palestinians in matters that will be…
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Party platform Hebrew 1977-05-01 Likud Party original platform, 1977 (English translation of Hebrew original)
The Right of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel (Eretz Israel) a. The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable and is linked with the right to security and peace; therefore,…
Sources
Per-field citations for the verified claims above. Other fields (notably the compass scores) remain hand-coded priors and are marked unverified until they pass the methodology pipeline — see methodology.
- founded_year en.wikipedia.org 2026-06-06 1973 merger of Herut and the Liberal Party
- current_leader_text en.wikipedia.org 2026-06-06 Continuous Likud chairman since 2005
- government_role en.wikipedia.org 2026-06-06 Lead party in the 37th government, formed 2022-12-29
How to cite
Each record carries a retrieval date because the dataset is live — individual entries update as verification deepens. Use the per-record citation when referencing this specific profile; use the dataset citation below when referencing the project as a whole.
In-text: (Gara, 2026)
Per-record citation
APA 7Reference list · academic default
Gara, T. (2026). Likud [Party profile]. Tayyar: A MENA political-position dataset. Retrieved August 5, 2026, from https://tarekgara.com/tayyar/p/likud
Chicago author-dateCommon in political-science journals
Gara, Tarek. 2026. "Likud." Party profile, Tayyar: A MENA political-position dataset. Accessed August 5, 2026. https://tarekgara.com/tayyar/p/likud.
BibTeXFor LaTeX / Zotero / reference managers
@misc{tayyar-likud,
title = {{Likud}},
author = {Gara, Tarek},
year = {2026},
publisher = {Tayyar: A MENA political-position dataset},
type = {Party profile},
url = {https://tarekgara.com/tayyar/p/likud},
urldate = {2026-08-05},
note = {First-pass entry; second-pass external review planned before publication.}
} Dataset / working-paper citation
If you're citing Tayyar as a project rather than this individual record.
APA 7Preprint
Gara, T. (2026). Tayyar: A MENA political-position dataset [Preprint]. Retrieved August 5, 2026, from https://tarekgara.com/tayyar/paper
BibTeXPreprint
@unpublished{tayyar-preprint,
title = {{Tayyar: A MENA political-position dataset}},
author = {Gara, Tarek},
year = {2026},
type = {Preprint},
url = {https://tarekgara.com/tayyar/paper},
urldate = {2026-08-05},
note = {Living document, regenerated from the live dataset on page load.}
} First-pass entry; second-pass external review planned before publication.